December 1, 2016

Champagne Jacquesson and a changing landscape at La Fête du Champagne

If we needed any proof to back up our belief that Champagne is the single most dynamic wine region in France today, we found it in spades at the recent third annual La Fête du Champagne. While changes are afoot from the marshy plains of the Pays Nantais to the steep slopes of Savoie, nowhere is the conversation as electric as it is in Champagne—and you’ll find Champagne Jacquesson and the Chiquet brothers right at the center of it. The Champagne we knew only ten years ago is a completely different animal, with new growers popping up like weeds and dosage levels falling faster than the Footsie the morning after Brexit.

For a window onto this changing landscape, get your hands on a bottle of Jacquesson’s recently released 2007 Dizy Corne Bautray. Everything about this wine flies in the face of conventional Champagne wisdom: A Blanc de Blancs from the very top of a steep southwest-facing slope strewn with Pinot Noir and Meunier vines—because this is Dizy, home to red varieties—an odd, old parcel of white grapes growing on a layer of gravelly, marl-studded topsoil over the chalk bedrock. And yet, according to Jean-Hervé Chiquet, this is Jacquesson’s most consistent vineyard, and the 2007 is hands down the most jaw-dropping release of this wine that we’ve had the pleasure to represent. Our table at La Fête’s Grand Tasting became progressively more mobbed as the word on the quality of this wine made its way around the event hall. This wine, like all of Jacquesson’s wines, is available in extremely limited quantities.

Jacquesson’s ’07 Corne Bautray was one of the best wines at the@lafetenyc Grand Tasting, and it’s equally as thrilling today in Dizy. Corne Bautray is always great, but the 2007 is extra great. –Peter Liem on Instagram, November 2016

For more on Jacquesson’s unique take on Champagne, check out their profile here.